Tesco has confirmed it will close dozens of fresh food counters and revamp hundreds of others in a cost-cutting drive that could result in up to 9,000 job losses.

The supermarket multiple has revealed plans to “simplify” the business following media reports over the weekend.

“In our four years of turnaround we’ve made good progress, but the market is challenging and we need to continually adapt to remain competitive and respond to how customers want to shop. We’re making changes to our UK stores and head office to simplify what we do and how we do it, so we’re better able to meet the needs of our customers,” said Tesco UK ceo Jason Tarry.

Tesco said it expected to close fresh food counters in around 90 large stores, with the remaining 700 stores trading with either a full or flexible counter offer.

”Over recent years, our convenience and online businesses have continued to grow, as have our core grocery and fresh departments in our large stores. Not only are customers shopping in different ways, but we know that they have less time available to shop too – which means they are using our counters less frequently,” it said in a statement.

However, it does not plan to make any significant changes to bakeries this year.

Over a 19-week period to 5 January, Tesco saw like-for-like sales grow 1.2% in the UK. In the six-week Christmas trading period, overall like-for-likes sales across its core UK and Irish markets grew 2.6%, with sales at wholesaler Booker up 6.7%.